Otmane El Manser ’14, Richie Khandelwal ’14 and Charag Krishnan ’14 beat out teams from more than 80 business schools to take first place at the Ross School of Business’s C.K. Prahalad Case Competition on Oct. 31. The team won for their innovative response to a case study involving an India-based company that produces medical kits for use during childbirth.

For these students, participating in the case competition was an incredibly valuable experience (and a great opportunity to earn bragging rights) while balancing social responsibility and business logic.

I like to think about ways to apply business frameworks and skills to have a positive social impact in developing countries. The theme of the case competition echoed well with this vision. And the question of finding a balance between profit generation and value creation for the base of the pyramid was very interesting to me.

My teammates and I all had very different backgrounds — ranging from the social sector to engineering to IT consulting — so the conversations we had about the best solution to the case were very enriching. We all benefited a lot from comparing our perspectives on the topic.

— Otmane El Manser ’14

The corporate and the social world are still two different entities that don’t talk to each other as much. Since I come from a corporate background, the case competition helped me get in the circle of people who are thinking more about social enterprise.

The most valuable part of participating was definitely the network. I met a lot of people at the conference from other business schools and we’ve had an ongoing relationship since then. – It’s good to know people who are excited about a similar space.

— Richie Khandelwal ’14

The key learning was, no matter how innovative your products are, the user experience eventually determines the adoption of the product. And the user experience is determined by soft competencies in addition to the hard aspects of the product. I also really enjoyed the discussions that came out of working with my teammates. We had a great mix of perspectives.

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Tips for Applying to Kellogg

My name is Beth Tidmarsh and I am the director of admissions for full-time MBA programs at Kellogg. We get lots of questions about how applicants can make their application stand out. Here are a few suggestions on how to help us understand who you are and why you want Kellogg to become a part of your future.